[ 4 min read ]

People take most things at face value (the reality of the world with which they were presented) without ever pondering if the solutions, methods, approaches are actually the best.

But for anything that flies in the face of the tried and true they need some kind of a scientific proof. They’ll wait until someone tells them that a study was made, such and such was the outcome, such and such are the implications, and such and such is the recommended new behavior / approach.

Why?

Because the old stuff had already been tested, whereas the new stuff is new. They probably don’t know anybody who tried it. They probably never heard about it.

The old stuff, even if it sucks, had been put into practice by hundreds of millions of people in the past and those people somehow managed to go through life (produced offspring, had their jobs, had their lives — it worked).

So the old stuff proved workable. There is a general agreement among people that it was a workable solution. And it suffices them for a proof. Maybe it had never been scientifically tested either, or anything like that, but people actually lived this way.

They’ll continue to do it in the same fashion, and they will never ask for a scientific proof. Not needed. Because their parents and grandparents also did it this way.

The new stuff, on the other hand, poses a threat, thus as long as there is no clear evidence that the new stuff is better, it’s better to stick to the old stuff.

If you told old people that the reason most senior citizens have health problems and are preoccupied with their health problems, need their daily dose of medicaments, and thus often need to see their doctors, etc. is very likely that they, as young people (like most of us), have been brainwashed to believe that retirement is mandatory, and that at least 90% of them actually retire when it’s time to retire, they will probably demand your head, and also a scientific proof.

They will demand your head because nobody likes to hear that they’ve screwed up. And by saying that a different approach to life would very likely lead to a different outcome (probably also better) you suggest, at the very least, that they might have had a choice. And this suggestion is something most people will be prepared to die fighting against.

They want to believe that they did the right thing, and that what they did was the only viable option. They will not want to admit that they were probably too quick to accept the reality of the world with which they were presented, and that, if they also listened to themselves (instead of having yielded to societal pressures) they might actually have chosen a career which they would never want to leave.

So in a desperate attempt to uphold their current belief (that they did the right thing and that nothing else was possible, and nothing else would work), they will demand a scientific proof. Without it they will forever stay convinced that other outcome wasn’t possible. They will keep believing and spreading “truths” about life, how it’s the fate of all human beings to lack purpose in our late 60s, 70s, 80s, 90s, and that the only job we can have as senior citizens (if we’re fortunate) is that of a grandparent, and how being crippled by health problems has nothing to do with our general approach to life.

Be aware of the fact that people will never ask you to prove to them scientifically that what they and their parents and grandparents did was reasonable and also advisable because it was based on some kind of a scientific research. They will only ask you about the scientific proof if you attempt to live your life differently (unlike most people) and dare to question the tried and true stuff.

Most people will use the lack of any kind of a scientific evidence in their attempt to discredit, ridicule and reject the idea for a different life, but they will never demand it in order to justify their current choice.

And if living it out is the ultimate measure of something being feasible and also advisable (according to most of us — it suffices for a proof) then we don’t need any proof. We only need to live our version out, even if we’ll be the first people ever to do it.

Screw the scientific proof! It is not needed in order to live your life the way you want.

And if you think that the argument about the potential detrimental effect of being primed from a very young age to retire at a prescribed age on the overall condition of an older person might have some merit, then decide that you’ll reject the idea that all people need to retire when they reach a certain age. Inevitably your whole thinking about life will change, and your life choices will change too. If it speaks to you, don’t wait 100 years until someone will scientifically validate this new theory. You might as well test it yourself. I mean, what’s the big deal? After all the current approach clearly sucks for most old citizens.